Good Day, this is the Commonwealth Report.
News for the public, not the powerful.
Did Trump Fire Comey Because Putin Wanted It Done?
The White House just declassified a bombshell. It says the FBI opened a secret investigation into whether Donald Trump fired Director James Comey because Vladimir Putin wanted him gone. The case was code-named Oxferd Comma. It grew out of Crossfire Hurricane, the bigger probe into whether the 2016 Trump campaign worked with Russia. Agents marked the file sensitive, which hides a case from other agents inside the bureau. They said that was the least intrusive way to handle what they saw as a serious national security risk.
Here’s the twist. The administration official who released all this says the theory never had evidence behind it. Oxferd Comma got folded into Robert Mueller’s investigation, and when Mueller shut down, it died there. That official says the bureau’s own files had already “debunked or ruled out” collusion.
Trump fired Comey in May of 2017. The White House blamed Comey’s handling of the Clinton email mess. Mueller’s report said Trump was actually furious that Comey wouldn’t announce publicly that the president wasn’t under investigation.
Today Comey sits under federal indictment he calls pure revenge. Will Americans ever know the real Trump/Putin connection?
Why Do Judges Keep Slapping Down Trump’s War on Free Speech?
Donald Trump ran for office promising to restore free speech in America. Reuters just checked the record. They looked at 93 cases where federal courts weighed First Amendment claims against this administration. In 75 of them, the judges ruled Trump had trampled the very right he claims to defend. Those judges were appointed by presidents of both parties.
Timothy Zick teaches law at William and Mary and studies presidents who go after speech. He says no president has moved against speech this aggressively since Woodrow Wilson, more than a century ago. Back then the rules were murky. Zick says today the First Amendment’s boundaries are very clear.
Look at what Trump’s actually done. His FCC leaned on ABC to push Jimmy Kimmel off the air. That failed. He’s suing the Des Moines Register and pollster Ann Selzer over a poll he didn’t like. He calls honest reporting about him treasonous.
Here’s what matters. Trump loses these fights because ordinary judges keep saying no. The Constitution isn’t defending itself. Judges are. And that’s exactly why Trump keeps attacking them too.
America’s Emergency Oil Tank Is Nearly Empty
Now let’s talk about oil. Bank of America crunched the numbers for Bloomberg, and the United States is down to about 43 days of crude oil supply. That includes everything sitting in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. The long-term average is 65 days. We haven’t been this thin since the 1980s.
How’d we get here? Trump’s war on Iran. When the shooting started, his Energy Department announced it would dump 172 million barrels out of the reserve to hold gas prices down. The reserve has fallen below 320 million barrels, the lowest level since April of 1983, and less than half of what those salt caverns can hold. The Government Accountability Office warned in May that more than a quarter of the remaining oil was not available for drawdown because the equipment is broken.
Brent crude hit $102 a barrel during this war. Every gallon you buy, every truck hauling groceries to your store, gets more expensive.
That reserve exists so no foreign power can hold America hostage at the pump. Trump lit a war, then burned the fire extinguisher to pay for it.
Republicans, What Will You Say When Your Grandkids Ask About the Camps?
That question isn’t rhetorical. After World War Two, Allied officers walked Germans through the camps next door to their villages, and the villagers all said the same thing. We didn’t know. Nobody believed them.
So here’s the record you’ll be asked about. The Ohio Immigrant Alliance published a report called They Walk Among Us. It documents 59 ICE and Border Patrol agents charged with or convicted of sexual and violent crimes, most of them against women and children. Tramonte, who led the research, says many of those agents had “ten and even twenty years on the force.”
This week, thousands of unaccompanied children lost their government-funded lawyers. Toddlers now face immigration judges alone. Rep. Joaquin Castro says ICE denied medication to a legal resident named Gabriel Johnson, who then suffered a stroke that paralyzed half his body. Rep. Sara Jacobs says the youngest child locked up at the Dilley facility in Texas is two months old. More than 110 House Democrats want Dilley shut down.
Every Republican in Congress knows this. Your grandchildren will ask what you did. Silence is going to be an answer.
Trump’s Ag Secretary Calls Starving Families a Big Win
Brooke Rollins runs the Department of Agriculture. She stood on a stage at Minnesota Farmfest Tuesday and bragged. She told the crowd that moving five million people off food stamps is “a pretty big win,” and then she called it a huge accomplishment.
Five million Americans. Children among them. About 45 million people got SNAP benefits last year, averaging around $190 a month. That’s roughly six dollars a day to feed a person. After the Republican budget law kicked in, enrollment fell 13% in twelve months.
At least a million and a half of those cut off are children. One policy expert answered her plainly, saying the hardship these families face isn’t a win at all.
Rollins also asked the Farmfest crowd to applaud her. Critics compared it to Jeb Bush begging a room full of voters to clap.
Please understand what’s up here. Congress handed trillions in tax cuts to billionaires, then paid part of the bill by pulling groceries away from poor children. And - the woman who carried it out wants a round of applause for it.
The Planet Is Burning and Nobody in Power Will Say Why
Take a look at Europe. The European Forest Fire Information System counted more than 457,000 hectares burned across the European Union by the end of July. That’s about 32% more than the same date last year. Spain alone has lost over 200,000 hectares. The fire near Ávila is the largest in Spanish history. France has passed its national record, with a single blaze in the Gironde burning 42,000 hectares and forcing more than 220,000 people out of their homes. Portugal, Italy, Greece and Turkey are all fighting fires. Those blazes have already pumped roughly 18 million tons of carbon dioxide into the sky.
Here’s the part nobody in Washington will say out loud. This is what a heated planet looks like. Not a forecast. Not a model. Right now. Every year the fires start earlier, burn hotter, and take more of the map.
Donald Trump gutted America’s climate programs, canceled the research, gagged the scientists, and put oil executives in charge of energy policy. He blamed communists for wrecking a reflecting pool. Who will he say lit Spain on fire?
And that’s the way it is, Today Wednesday, August 5, 2026. I’m Thom Hartmann.
